DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-11 and 13-21 are pending.
Claim 12 is cancelled.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55 for Application No. EP 21275151.5 filed on 10/27/2021 and GB 2115423.2 filed on 10/27/2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references cited in the information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 04/26/2024 have been considered by the examiner.
Examiner’s Remark
Examiner attempted to contact Applicant’s representative without success, to discuss Examiner’s proposed amendments to overcome 101 rejections, on 04/09/2026 and 04/13/2026, leaving a voicemail each time. Examiner welcomes Applicant’s representative to request an interview, should Applicant’s representative feels that a discussion may be useful.
Claim Objections
The following claims are objected to for informalities, lack of antecedent support, or for redundancies. The Examiner recommends the following changes:
Claim 1, line 8, replace “a faulty state” with “the faulty state”
Claim 14, line 11, replace “a faulty state” with “the faulty state”
Claim 15, line 11, replace “a faulty state” with “the faulty state”
Appropriate correction is respectfully requested.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
(Step 2A, Prong One)
Independent claim 1 recites, “… generating, using a trained machine learning algorithm, a probability P.sub.F that the received data record indicates that the engineering asset is in a faulty state; determining what number of data records received in a look-back time L.sub.t are indicative of the engineering asset being in a faulty state, wherein the look-back time L.sub.t is a time period occurring before the time t at which the data record was collected; predicting a probability of the engineering asset failing during a horizon time H.sub.t, wherein the horizon time H.sub.t is a time period after the time t at which the data record was collected, wherein the predicting includes implementing a Bayes forecasting model to predict the probability of failure within the horizon time H.sub.t based on the generated probability P.sub.F and the number of data records which were determined to be faulty within the look-back time L.sub.t; comparing the predicted probability to a failure threshold; …”.
Under its broadest reasonable interpretation, if a claim limitation covers performance that can be executed in the human mind, but for the recitation of generic electronic devices or generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Under their broadest reasonable interpretation and based on the description provided in the Specification, such as FIGS. 2a-2b and their corresponding paragraphs, for instance, the generating, determining, predicting and comparing functions are a mental process that can be performed through observation, evaluation and judgement based on a received data and/or are processes that entails purely mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations.
Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
(Step 2A, Prong Two)
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional limitations of, “receiving a data record comprising data on the engineering asset collected from a plurality of sensors at time t; … and responsive to the predicted probability exceeding the failure threshold, outputting one or both of (a) an alert to act as a decision aid to a user and (b) a signal to trigger an automated self-protection protocol within the engineering asset, wherein the self-protection protocol adjusts one or more components within the engineering asset.”
The additional limitation of “receiving a data record comprising data on the engineering asset collected from a plurality of sensors at time t” is an insignificant extra-solution activity under MPEP 2106.05(g), without imposing meaningful limits. The limitation amounts to necessary data gathering. (i.e., all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering or data output).
The additional limitation of “responsive to the predicted probability exceeding the failure threshold, outputting one or both of (a) an alert to act as a decision aid to a user and (b) a signal to trigger an automated self-protection protocol within the engineering asset, wherein the self-protection protocol adjusts one or more components within the engineering asset” will be interpreted as “responsive to the predicted probability exceeding the failure threshold, outputting … (a) an alert to act as a decision aid to a user”, due to the “or” clause. The practical application requires an additional element or a combination of additional elements in the claim to apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. When so evaluated, the additional limitation of “responsive to the predicted probability exceeding the failure threshold, outputting … (a) an alert to act as a decision aid to a user” is merely adding the word outputting with the judicial exception that attempts to cover a solution to an identified problem with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result, does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more because this type of recitation is equivalent to the words "apply it", and does not apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, and therefore is not indicative of integration into a practical application, see MPEP 2106.05(f). The claim does not recite an improvement in a technology as set forth in MPEP 2106.04(d) and MPEP 2106.05(a). Accordingly, the additional limitations recited in the claim do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
In view of the foregoing, the additional limitations are not sufficient to demonstrate integration of a judicial exception into a practical application.
(Step 2B)
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
The receiving function represents a function that is recognized as well-understood, routine, and conventional. For instance, as demonstrated in Wang et al. (US 2021/0232731 A1) paragraph [0239] (“FIG. 23 is a flowchart for predicting failure of one or more components in some embodiments. In step 2302, the model scoring module 538 may receive current sensor data (e.g., new sensor data) from the same components or group of components that provided the historical sensor data. The model scoring module 538 may apply the selected failure prediction model to the current sensor data to generate a prediction in step 2304. In various embodiments, based on current sensor data, SCADA information, or user controls, the model scoring module 538 may load models from the load developed model module 542 (which may store selected failure prediction models that were evaluated against other failure prediction models by the performance measures module 530). In some embodiments, the model scoring module 538 may also receive selected features from the load selected features module 540. The selected features may be from the current sensor data and/or SCADA information for application to the selected model and/or utilized to configure the selected model for scoring.”), BOUAZIZ et al. (US 2023/0334363 A1) paragraph [0013] (“c. receive first unlabeled data associated with the system to be analyzed, wherein the first unlabeled data comprises at least sensor data associated with one or more sensors”), and Tashman et al. (US 2020/0265331 A1) paragraph [0038] (“FIG. 3 is a block diagram example of a failure detection system 300. Referring to section 305 of FIG. 3, historical sensor data 306 associated with assets in one or more factories 105 (FIG. 1) is received. The sensor data 306 may include historical time series data collected over the life of different assets as well as records of past failure events.”).
The additional limitation of “responsive to the predicted probability exceeding the failure threshold, outputting … (a) an alert to act as a decision aid to a user” is merely adding the word outputting (or “to apply”) with the judicial exception, and does not impose a meaningful limit on practicing the abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(f). Thus, when taken alone, the individual additional limitations do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually.
Therefore, the additional claimed features do not amount to significantly more and the claim is not patent eligible.
Independent claims 14 and 15 are not patent eligible for similar reasons, as explained above, for independent claim 1.
Dependent claims 2-7 and 13 simply add more detail to or are cumulative to the abstract idea of claim 1. Accordingly, the claims 2-7 and 13 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 8-11 simply add more detail to or are cumulative to the abstract idea and extra solution activities of claim 1. Accordingly, the claims 8-11 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 16-20 simply add more detail to or are cumulative to the abstract idea of claim 15. Accordingly, the claims16-20 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claim 21 simply add more detail to or are cumulative to the abstract idea of claim 14. Accordingly, the claim 21 is not patent eligible.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Wang et al. (US 2021/0232731 A1) describes in Abstract, a method comprising “receiving event and alarm data from event logs, failure data, and asset data from SCADA system(s), retrieve patterns of events, receiving historical sensor data from sensors of components of wind turbines, training a set of models to predict faults for each component using the patterns of events and historical sensor data, each model of a set having different observation time windows and lead time windows, evaluating each model of a set using standardized metrics, comparing evaluations of each model of a set to select a model with preferred lead time and accuracy, receive current sensor data from the sensors of the components, apply the selected model(s) to the current sensor data to generate a component failure prediction, compare the component failure prediction to a threshold, and generate an alert and report based on the comparison to the threshold.
BOUAZIZ et al. (US 2023/0334363 A1) described a computerized system performing training of machine learning models to enable prediction of occurrence of events, which are associated with a system to be analyzed, so that labels are generated, as in paragraph [0192], where “the labels 146 per methodology 100 are probabilistic labels, while those based on recorded event histories indicates occurrence or non-occurrence for each Ti, without probabilities. This additional probabilistic information per Ti can in some examples provide the ability to train 158 a prediction model 160 which is configured for predicting probabilities. Thus, in some examples several data-driven techniques are combined with tools of engineering field knowledge, to enable the required event(s) prediction 180.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W CHOI whose telephone number is (571)270-5069. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kenneth Lo can be reached at (571) 272-9774. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MICHAEL W CHOI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116
Prosecution Insights